The rates are based upon total expenditure and average number of guns in the hands of field armies for the period of the wars. A large part of the heavy expenditure of artillery ammunition in the present as compared with other modern wars can be attributed to the increased rate of fire made possible by improved methods of supply in the field and by the rapid-fire guns now in use. In wars fought before the introduction of quick-firing field guns, four or five rounds per day was the greatest average rate. Even this was reached only in the siege of Sebastopol, where armies were stationary and supply by water was easy, and in the American Civil War, which was characterized by advanced tactical developments. The guns of the allied armies in France fired throughout the year 1918 at a rate about seven times greater than these previously high rates.] In the case of larger weapons the increase in ammunition consumption is even more startling. Prior to 1917 the War Department allotted to each 3-inch field gun 125 rounds of ammunition per year for practice firing. Ammunition for the 75-millimeter guns (the 3-inch equivalent) was being produced to meet an estimated supply of 22,750 rounds for each gun in a single year, or an increased consumption of ammunition in war over peace of 18,100 per cent. [Illustration: FIGURE 3. EXPENDITURE OF ARTILLERY AMMUNITION IN RECENT WARS. PAST WARS COMPARED WITH ONE MONTH OF PRESENT WAR. ---------+---------------+---------+------------------------------------ Year. | War. | Army. | Rounds expended during war. ---------+---------------+---------+------------------------------------ 1859 |Italian |Austrian | 15,326 | | | 1861-1865|Civil |Union |========== 5,000,000 | | | 1866 |Austro-Prussian|{Prussian| 36,199 | |{Austrian| 96,472 | | | 1870-71 |Franco-Prussian|German |== 817,000 | | | 1904-5 |Russo-Japanese |Russian |== 954,000 | | | 1912-13 |Balkan |Bulgarian|= 700,000 | | | 1918 |Present |British |In one | |and |month.[6] | |French |========================= 12,710,000 ---------+---------------+---------+------------------------------------ EXPENDITURES FOR ONE YEAR, CIVIL AND PRESENT WARS. ---------+---------------+---------+------------------------------------ 1864[7] |Civil |Union |= 1,950,000 | | | 1918[8] |Present |United |== 8,100,000 | |States | | | |